Today at Motorola's mass holiday lunch I was trying to get Kirill Orlov to teach me how to make the diminuitive name for each of the Russians in the group. After my feeble attempts to mimic his pronunciation, he told me I remind him of this joke.

An American staying in Moscow wakes up with a hangover, and goes out for some hair-of-the-dog. Someone at the party the previous night had told him about the beer kiosks on the street and even wrote down how to ask for beer.

The American gets to the kiosk and pulls out his paper, and in a halting American accent, he asks the Russian equivalent of "Can I have some beer?"

The kiosk was out of beer, so the girl says "Nyet". Then the American consults the paper again, and in a halting American accent, says the Russian equivalent of "DAMNIT! That's just my luck!"